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Intel'southward latest Cadre i9-7980XE is a monster CPU and the fastest core you tin buy in the consumer space today (for an extremely specific and well-heeled definition of 'consumer,' anyhow). As with all loftier cadre count CPUs, nonetheless, Intel had to compromise on clock speeds. The all-core clock on a Cadre i9-7980XE drops to three.4GHz under total load, to keep ability consumption at a manageable level. Of course, if yous're overclocking with liquid nitrogen, you tin can ignore such minor inconveniences every bit TDP.

Overclocker Der8auer, whose piece of work we have covered on several occasions, managed to boot the cadre at 6.1GHz, though he had to drib dorsum to an all-core frequency of 5.6GHz. Asus provided the motherboard, a ROG Rampage Six Noon. That'southward not quite the absolute benchmark-stable tape that'southward been hit, however — TechRadar reports another overclocker, Elmor, pushed the chip a bit harder and hit a CB15 score of 5,723.

While these speeds are tremendous–Der8auer's Cinebench score of 5,635 is ~1.7x faster than what nosotros logged in our own review–the reported power consumption of the system was over 1kW. Keep in mind, that'southward in a test similar Cinebench, where the touch on of the GPU is going to be limited to a flake more than idle ability.

Furthermore, in that location's a human relationship betwixt CPU temperature and power consumption; a flake clocked at 5.5GHz with liquid nitrogen uses less power than a hypothetical CPU clocked at that speed with a conventional air-libation. The fact that a 1.65x increment in clock (from 3.4 – 5.6GHz) send power consumption flying upwards to over a kilowatt, in an platonic scenario that intrinsically lowered the CPU's power consumption past reducing resistance within the core, is testify for why Intel and AMD don't pursue loftier clock speeds the manner they used to. Past a certain point, information technology'south no longer possible to move heat out of the die apace plenty with conventional air or even water cooling. There have been diverse proposals to movement heat out of CPUs more effectively, from micro-channels in thermal paste, to microfluidic cooling, to introducing cubic boron arsenide equally a heat-transporting material.

The problem with these types of solutions, and the reason we don't really run into them deployed in the field, are twofold. First, they would represent a radical change to the desktop marketplace. CPUs would have to be sold pre-attached to heatsinks (in the case of micro-channeled thermal paste) or with coolers pre-mounted into motherboards in the example of microfluidic channel cooling. If whatever CPU companies are exploring cubic boron arsenide as a heat transport textile, we've yet to hear almost it. But the second, even larger issue, is that these are substantially ane-time gains.

Co-ordinate to Anandtech, the Core i9-7980XE's total bundle (meaning the core and uncore combined) draws 190W. Permit'southward assume 250W of the 1kW figure mentioned past TechRadar is consumed by the GPU, RAM, and motherboard. That'southward an extremely loftier figure for a CPU benchmark like Cinebench, just the point is to exist bourgeois in our interpretation of CPU power. That leaves 750W for the CPU, which would hateful a 1.65x increase in clock requires a three.94x increase in power consumption while using a cooling method that physics says will draw less ability than the aforementioned solution running air or water-cooled (if such clocks were possible in the first place).

That'due south why companies similar Intel and AMD don't pursue these radical ideas, even when they could yield meaning i-time gains. Cut CPU temperatures by xx or 30C sounds great, just temperatures and ability requirements now calibration and then steeply compared with frequency, the long-term gains are however relatively small. The consumer market has never been very interested in significant cost increases in substitution for moderate (say, one.2x – 1.3x) one-time gains. And there's no sane, cheap, and long-term cooling method on World that tin can sustain a CPU that's pulling 750W+ when cooled with LN2 and significantly more power at room temperature. These record-breaking efforts are interesting, only a scrap's functioning under LN2 is vastly unlike from what it can deliver when cooled with air, water, or even single-stage freon.